Polish plot to remove fellow countrymen Donald Tusk from European Union presidency foiled

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who will oversee Thursday’s election for president for the next two and a half years, says that consultations over the past week have shown “very solid support” for Tusk.

Prime minister Beata Szydlo said it was a matter of principle not to elect a president of the European Council who did not enjoy the support of his home country.

She said a declaration to be signed at a special summit in Rome later this month should guarantee equal rights to all members and clearly indicate the direction of European Union reforms. As they said, the stance of Szydlo would not affect the result.

Afterwards, EU leaders discussed the need for a continued commitment to free trade and to the fight against protectionism.

On the margins of the summit, the chief Brexit negotiator at the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, said British citizens should be allowed to keep the benefits of EU membership. But agreeing a joint text is proving hard.

Among priorities for closer cooperation for Germany, France and others is defence, prompted in part by concerns that U.S. President Donald Trump may scale back Washington’s support forEuropeans in the face of Russian ambitions. But Szydlo said there were red lines for Poland.

He said: “Either Mrs May alienates nearly all the other member states or she upsets the Poles, who she’s spent months and months cultivating”. For Mr Kaczynski and his nationalist, Eurosceptic followers, Mr Tusk is the embodiment of the liberal, progressive elites who betray traditional Polish values by allowing the European Union to override the country’s sovereignty.

In addition, European Union priority measures for growth, migration, and the situation in Western Balkans were among the topics debated by European Union leaders at the two-day summit. “That won’t be the case”. What some consider the ruling party’s efforts to undermine rule of law by taking over the constitutional court have been debated extensively in Brussels, though without impact in Poland. But he said “they don’t want to sacrifice President Tusk because of that, because they think he has done a good job”. But Thursday’s stand-off was the latest chapter in a long-running domestic drama between two men who cut their teeth in Poland’s Solidarity movement but parted company in the post-communist years.

“I am convinced it is just an episode”.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said: “I see no sense in getting offended and retreating into a corner, whether for the Poles or the rest. We can not hide that this country is Germany”, said Mr Kaczynski, who regularly rails against Berlin’s domination of Europe. “The enhanced cooperation, the multi-speed Europe.is the only answer, the only way forward”.